Sadness Is A Parade

Sadness is a parade.

Slow, steady, methodical. 

We are the percussion of this lonely march. 

One step forward.

One more, just one more.

A dampened pounding as we carry the burden of our own bodies. 

Still moving, still seeing, still alive. 

Sadness is loss. 

Sadness is persistent. 

Sadness is beautiful, or so I’ve been told. 

Like when a herd of elephants comes across the bones of a former matriarch. 

They caress the bones, roll them gently with heavy feet.

They put their trunks through the mandibles. 

A greeting as if to say, 

“Hello.”

“We miss you.”

“We love you and always will.” 

That’s a beautiful kind of sadness,

when the memories transcend what we feel we can’t escape.

That hollowed out feeling in our chest where the heart beats.

That steady stream of tears as they plummet to the ground, 

Seeping into the solid where her body now rests.

So I pretend that the sadness I feel is a beautiful kind of sadness too. 

It stays with me, a constant reminder of what’s been lost. 

But also what’s been gained. 

For life just grows around the sadness until it feels less like a burden 

and more like a memory because the last thing we want is to forget.

So when the elephants touch her sun-bleached bones for the last time and wander away together to continue their journey, 

it isn’t actually goodbye. 

It’s until next time. 

And until then, 

I miss you. 

I love you. 

And I always will.